Destined
by Halfelven hero
Summary: The story of Esme and Carlisle
1. Prologue

**_Prologue:_**

_**Three passions have governed my life:  
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,  
And unbearable pity for the suffering of humankind.**_

_**Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.  
In the union of love I have seen  
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision  
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.**_

_**With equal passion I have sought knowledge.  
I have wished to understand the hearts of people.  
I have wished to know why the stars shine.**_

_**Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,  
But always pity brought me back to earth;  
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart  
Of children in famine, of victims tortured  
And of old people left helpless.  
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,  
And I too suffer.**_

_**This has been my life; I found it worth living.**_

_**Bertrand Russell**_

"_Well, Carlisle, if your Jesus could turn water into wine, and feed multitudes with a small amount of food, I'm sure he could make a woman fall in love with you when she's a teenager; screw up her life bad enough to make her attempt suicide ten years later, in a city where you happen to work at the nearest hospital, and keep her on the very edge of life long enough for you, who happens to be her true soul mate, to change her into a vampire. Just call it a miracle."_


	2. Emergency

**_Since the great and honorable Stephenie Meyer promised us a wedding in B.D., I'm going to give us another one -- the story (and eventually wedding) of Esme and Carlisle._**

"Carlisle, Martha, anybody, grab a stretcher," one of the nurses called from triage.

"One minute," I called, my voice calm as ever. It was a busy day and I was starting to get stressed. "Martha," I called to one of the young interns; one of the silly little girls that couldn't look at me without breaking into a fit of silent giggles, or worse yet, swooning, "give me a hand, please. Amelia," this was directed toward an older woman wearing angel-print scrubs, "please help Mr. Anderson, room 10."

"Yes, Doctor Cullen," Amelia said, bustling away. It took another minute for Martha, who was busy staring in the mirror at the nurses station, primping her badly-dyed black bob, to come help me.

"Grab the other end of this," I told her, wondering, yet again, how on earth she had been hired. I lifted the head-end of a stretcher, little more than a piece of double-thick plywood with some padding on it. We walked carefully toward the front of the hospital; I spent the whole time wondering why the duce I didn't just do it myself. This girl was obviously busy daydreaming about the speakeasy that she would, undeniably, be visiting as soon as her shift ended. I didn't need to be Edward to know her type -- I could smell the bootleg liquor in her blood.

Kids these days, I swear.

In the triage area, a bear stood in front of me. 6'6" or 6'7", with brown hair that flowed over his shoulders in tight curls. He holding a crumpled woman in his arms. A white kitchen towel with a blood-soaked fleur-de-lis was held tight against her head.

"Put her on the gurney," I told the man, and he complied, placing her carefully on the gurney. He arranged her body carefully, and as he did so, I looked down at her face. The woman looked vaguely familiar -- and I knew her smell.

I forced myself to be rational. I couldn't be thinking about smell… or blood.

A willow branch of a woman, apparently the man's wife, was standing next to him. "Dr. Cullen? Is that you?" Her face registered surprise.

I looked at her carefully. I couldn't put a name to her face. Thin, tall, brunette, with long and plain hair. Like the woman on the stretcher, I knew her scent -- even though it seemed plain, compared to the other woman's -- "I'm…. sorry?" I said. Occupational hazard. When you work in a business where you come in contact with hundreds of people over the course of a year, it's hard to remember names.

And it was just ever-so worse for me.

"Stella Platt?" she said, with a hint of indignation in her voice. "Well, Stella Saint-Michaels now," She added with a glance toward her husband. "From Columbus, don't you remember? We lived down the block from you, on Arbor Road. All of my sisters and I had the worst crushes on you. You… probably don't recognize her, but that's Esme." She pointed at the woman on the gurney.

"Ah, Miss Platt. I remember you lot." I remembered Esme, all right. That girl had broken her leg at sixteen, and had tried to kiss me while I was casting her leg, and well, her smell -- as Aro would say, my tua cantante-- I almost kissed her back. Holding the board steady with my right hand, I picked up her arm.

"Carlisle," Martha told me, "I don't think she's breathing. We should take her down to the morgue."

Stella and her husband looked dumbstruck. I could have slapped that girl across the face.

"Martha," my voice was even. "People can survive with the most extraordinary wounds. Let me take her pulse." I rested two fingers gently over her wrist. There was a beat there, but it was slight., just a faint little beat. None of the humans would have detected it. But it was just a flicker. She was holding on to this existence by a thread that was perilously close to breaking. She had, to all intents and purposes, killed herself.

But there was time. The choice stood before me. I had taught myself to be detached. But I could give in. I could do the right thing. Or I could do the crazy thing. I needed to think.

--

"Were you able to see what happened, perchance?" I asked, trying to keep my voice cool. I was genuinely interested in how she'd ended up, but I also needed something to buy me time to think.

"There's a fun story," the man grunted.

"She jumped off a cliff," Stella said, being blessedly succinct. "Well, you see, Doctor Cullen, Esme had a baby boy less than a week ago, and he died, this morning. She was feeling really out of it." Well, that explained her rounded figure. I remembered as a medium-height, but slender, very slender young woman. I had to admit, she didn't look like she'd just had a child; she was beautiful; a collage of the best features of every young actress, stage and film, blended into one body -- not that I place much merit on physical appearance, of course.

"And all that crap with her husband, on top of it," the man added, breaking me out of my little reverie.

If looks could kill, Stella would have killed that man. I had a feeling that she wasn't going to tell me that part of the story. "Charles Evenson," she said, reluctantly, at my inquisitive glance. "Esme was afraid to tell mom and dad about the things he did to her; she didn't love him, but they kept insisting that she marry him -- not directly, of course, but they dropped little hints here and there. She couldn't hide the scars from me. The bruises, too. She came north after she found out she was pregnant, to get away from the scumbag, to give the kid a chance." Her voice broke up, and tears started to form in her eyes.

So her life had been utter shit, in the most technical terms.

Well, now I knew that I was going to do. I was going to make Esme Platt a vampire. I was going to give her the 'life' that she'd never had. I knew that I was being self-centered and selfish, but frankly, I didn't care.

Now, I needed a plan.

--

My fingers were still hovering over her wrist, while I was thinking. After about twenty seconds, I had my plan: improvise. I gently let her hand fall to her side. I pulled a silver watch out of my pocket, and spent a moment glancing at the hands. "Time of death, 9:21 hours." My voice was brisk and detached. "Cause of death, Suicide via major head trauma. Martha and Lois, please take her down to the morgue. I will be down there shortly." Clean and professional.

Another nurse appeared out of the ether, and took my end of the board. They maneuvered the board slowly toward the back of the hospital.

"I am so sorry," I said to Stella, who had broken into tears. "I understand that this must be difficult for you, especially after everything that you described her having gone through. But she'll have peace now."

That seemed to offer her a little comfort; she was still at a loss for words."

Her husband stepped in, "What about services… and things like that?" his gruff voice was hesitant -- he didn't want to upset his wife further.

"I will have somebody talk to you presently," I promised. "I need to go… take care of things," I said, praying that they didn't want me to be more specific.

--

I walked toward the back of the hospital, into the morgue area, where Esme lay on a table. She was still comatose and unmoving, but I knew that she was alive. Looking at her, looking beyond the streaks of dried blood that matted her beautiful caramel hair and, and the black and blue patches that marred her pale skin, I felt passion well up inside of me. Somehow, I knew that this was the best decision I had made since I was born.

I closed my eyes and soundlessly screamed Edward's name. When I was confident that I had his attention -- completely unsure, but confident -- I told him what was happening. We would have to leave Wisconsin, as soon as I changed her, because, unfortunately, people have the nasty habit of noticing when the bodies of their loved ones mysteriously disappear.

I took a bit of sponge and wiped the blood away from Esme's forehead, looking at some of the lacerations that covered her body.

It was miraculous. Other than a few bumps, cuts, and bruises, Esme was relatively unharmed, physically. It seemed as though sheer will protected her while she fell, slowed her heartbeat and held her in a comatose state -- she had died inside before she threw herself off the cliff. The more and more I thought about it, the more improbable it seemed. More likely than not, she had knocked her head hard and was actually in a coma.

This was in Providence's hands now.

My body was calm and controlled, practicing a routine I'd performed many times; cleaning wounds; my mind was still screaming, despite my rational mind's attempt to calm down. _Was I doing the right thing? _Many of the cuts were shallow, but there one cut that ran from her temple to her jawbone. _She had tried to kill herself, after all._ The cut was deep and oozing warm blood that smelled like a symphony._ Would this plan even work?_ It would have to be stitched._ Would she hate me for giving her unending life?_

This was in Providence's hands now.

I didn't bother to numb the area around the cut -- she wouldn't feel any pain. I worked quickly, suturing the cut. I wasn't sure if it would hold very long -- I hoped it would hold long enough for her to change. If I was _very _careful…

I carefully picked Esme up, and left through the back door, running like it was the second coming of Christ.

**_I hope you enjoy. Please, feel free to be constructive in any criticism. Point out any mistakes._**


	3. Miracle

**_I'm not sure about the dialogue between the boys. R&R_**

My house was just down the street from the hospital, so I couldn't go there with Esme. Her screams during the transformation would keep the entire neighborhood awake for days. Luckily, Edward and I kept a cabin in the woods, not too far from the city, that we used as our base when we needed to hunt. The world passed by in a blur; luckily, the town was small, and there was almost no traffic -- though I doubt anyone could've seen me.

The city gave way to fields, which gave way to a dense forest. It's quite difficult, trying to evade trees while running at supersonic speeds. And unfortunately, the cabin was deep in the woods, far away from where any humans would wander.

Edward was already in the cabin, a novel in his hands. "You got my message," I said, as I set Esme gently on the cot. The cabin was like a small, one room house -- just in case anybody stumbled upon it while wandering out and about.

"How could I?" He smiled. "It would be like not hearing somebody scream 'fire' in a crowded theater. And it doesn't help that I'm so attuned to you."

I laughed, but it was a dry laugh.

"So this is Esme," Edward said, nodding in her direction.

"I'm going to try to change her. I don't know if it will work, though, she could be more injured than I think."

"How so?" He sounded curious.

"She landed on her head… she may have inter-cranial swelling, I don't know. She fell ... well, jumped ... off a cliff, anything's possible."

"Curious," Edward said. He slipped a sheet of paper in his book as a bookmark, and rested his hand on Esme's forehead. "I thought so, but I couldn't be sure. She's dreaming, Carlisle. I think that means her brain is okay, no?"

"It does," I said. But I didn't feel the weight lift off of my shoulders. "You can see people's dreams, too?"

Edward smiled, his coy, crooked smile, but didn't answer.

"What is she dreaming about?" I asked.

"She's at a dinner table, in a cozy-looking house. Lots of fancy paintings on the walls. She's serving dinner to her kids, cutting up their steak, dishing out mashed potatoes, educating the children on the proper use of dinnerware. You're sitting across the table from her, smiling.

"Now she's lying in bed, resting in your arms. It looks like she has quite a crush on you."

"What?" I must have misheard him.

"Dreams aren't always logical, Carlisle," he put on a maddening air of patience. "I'm sure that at least half of the women you've met in your lifetime have had similar dreams." Edward smirked.

"This is… too strange," I said. "What could all this mean. First of all, she should be dead. Her body is technically on the verge of death. If I were human, I wouldn't have felt her pulse. She fell and hit her head. She gets cut on the rocks below, instead of going splat. No broken bones. Not a single one… she shouldn't be alive … and more than that, how is it that she happens to come in to that particular hospital, out of all the cities, of all the states, she was here in Wisconsin." I sounded so out of character, like a demented, love stricken teenager. "Even if I change her, she might be stuck in a coma."

"Well, Carlisle, if your Jesus could turn water into wine, and feed multitudes with a small amount of food, I'm sure he could make a woman fall in love with you when she's a teenager; screw up her life bad enough to make her attempt suicide ten years later, in a city where you happen to work at the nearest hospital, and keep her on the very edge of life long enough for you, who happens to be her true soul mate, to change her into a vampire. Just call it a miracle."

"That doesn't make sense. It goes against nature," I retorted. "Things don't happen like that. It makes no sense."

"Nor does walking on water," was his smooth reply. "Not to mention being a super-human, bloodsucking monster. If you want my advice, Carlisle, stop over-analyzing how _impossible_ this scenario is, and go bite your princess over there."

--

I had to be careful about this. Several hours had passed. I decided to wait until she woke from her coma. Illogical really, because it wasn't going to happen. Esme was dead.

If I bit too deep, I could slice clean through her jugular, damage the vein, and probably kill her. I had to break in to vein, just enough to let the venom in. It was a daunting task.

It took a couple of minutes to prepare myself. If I were human, I would probably be hyperventilating or having a panic attack. But now I was just nervous. Wasn't there somebody else that could do this? What if I did it wrong. Could I live with myself, if I killed Esme, after everything she's been through?

I just had to do it. No options, no back up plan. It was either Edward or myself.

"Edward," I said, "I'm about to do it. You may want to go out and hunt for a few hours … or a few days. She's going to scream like murder." Edward would remember the pain of his transformation, and how loud _he'd _screamed.

Edward nodded, wished me luck, and was out the door before I could look in his direction again. He was being surprisingly well-natured about this. I suppose he could understand; he was probably eager to have somebody else to talk to. Except for me, he's been alone since he's been a vampire, and goodness knows that I'm not interesting.

I made an act of fetching the first-aid kit from a hidden-away nook. I snapped open the metal case, and rustled around, pulling out rolls of gauze and tape. I wanted to close the bite wound as soon as I could.

I rested my hand gently over her neck; her skin was soft and warm against my own. My fingertips rested over her jugular; her pulse was stronger than it had been an hour or so ago. I took this as a good sign. I rested my lips over her soft flesh, and I thought I felt Esme stir -- no, that must have been my imagination. This wasn't going to wor--

I gently sunk my teeth into her flesh before I could finish that thought. Gently, gently, gently... As soon as the first drops of blood were drawn, she screamed, a blood-curdling scream that cut into the wood frame of the house. I felt her skin turn to ice beneath my lips. The transformation had begun -- I did it.

Edward was right; this was nothing short of a miracle.

I carefully bandaged her neck with the gauze and tape. "Esme, are you awake?" I asked, taking her hand in mine.

"What do you think?" was her head-splitting response, screamed to the ceiling. Even though she was screaming, her voice was beautiful, almost music to my ears. "Who are you? Are you a fire-fighter? Put out the flames!"

I laced my fingers in with hers. "This is… this is Dr… erm, this is Carlisle Cullen. Esme, you're going to be in pain for a few days. You're not on fire, you're perfectly safe. I shall explain everything to you."

I could feel her relax. "Dr. Cullen," she winced, trying, struggling to not scream. Then she smiled.


End file.
